PJABBER
Diamond Member
- Feb 8, 2001
- 4,822
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Just to give you an idea of who you are maligning -
Scott Helvenston
By all accounts, Scott Helvenston, who joined Blackwater in March, 2004, was well prepared for security work. He had been a Navy SEAL instructor and was a world class athlete.
People who knew Scott Helvenston -- "The Helv" to close friends -- struggle to explain how strong he was, physically and mentally. They point to his joining the SEALs when he was just 17. They bring up the time when he represented the Navy in a world military pentathlon championship. He won, perhaps the closest thing to being named the best military athlete on the planet.
Or they mention the time his parachute malfunctioned. He broke both wrists and both ankles, but stood and tried to walk away.
"It just seemed like he always had to prove himself," said his mother, Kathryn Helvenston-Wettengel. "I don't know if he did that, or the world put it on him."
Helvenston had been not just a SEAL but an instructor, teaching underwater techniques and advanced parachuting -- SEAL stands for the attack routes of sea, air and land. He had parlayed his 12 years with the commando unit into acting and consulting on Hollywood movies, selling a line of fitness videos and working as a fitness trainer and climbing guide.
Helvenston's father committed suicide when he was young, and he had vowed to do better by his own son and daughter, who were 14 and 12. But he had recently divorced, and he needed money.
'Scotty Bod' Grows Up
A Colleague Pays Tribute
Jerry Zovko
A 6'3" former Army Ranger, he was born in Cleveland, joined the military in 1991 and had a reputation for being independent, with a knack for getting what he wanted. A Croatian-American, he got himself assigned to Bosnia in 1995 to help keep the peace. In 1997, after being thwarted in joining the Green Berets, he left the army and went to work as a security contractor for DynCorp in Qatar and Dubai, where he learned Arabic. In the summer of 2003, he signed on with Vinnell to help train the new Iraqi army, telling his family it was important work because the Iraqis needed the chance to take charge of their own country. Three months later, he joined Blackwater Security Consulting.
Zovko was so outgoing that it seemed as though he knew every westerner in Baghdad. He spoke good Arabic -- and several other languages -- and chatted often with the staff in the small hotel where he lived.
A Letter From A Colleague
A quiet driven man
Wesley Batalona
A native of Hawaii, Batalona was career Army and a former Ranger sergeant with a reputation for being tough. Like the others, his motive for signing on for security work in Iraq was mixed: a yearning for some adventure, a bit of self-challenge, and the money. He wanted to help out his father who was facing foreclosure on his house.
Batalona joined the Army in 1974 and took part in the 1989 invasion of Panama, the first Gulf War and the 1993 humanitarian mission to Somalia. After 20 years he retired and ended up taking a hotel night security work. But he yearned to do more and didn't hesitate when he learned through contacts with other former soldiers about security work in Iraq.
Batalona was known for quietly sizing up people, then using pranks to befriend them. He had a soft spot for kids, perhaps because as one of the youngest in a pack of nine, he had sometimes been overlooked. He jokingly called Zovko his son.
Army builds a future
Michael Teague
Teague, 38, of Clarksville, Tenn., was a burly softball player and motorcycle enthusiast. He had left a low-paying security guard job in Tennessee. He was a decorated 12-year Army veteran who had served in Afghanistan, Panama and Grenada and with a Special Operations helicopter unit nicknamed "Night Stalkers."
Here's an account of the mission distilled from the reports published by The News and Observer (North Carolina):
Zovko, Batalona, Teague and Helvenston had signed short-term contracts with Prince's company, earning about $600 a day.
Their job was to escort food convoys and workers for a European food service company called ESS to a U.S. military base west of Fallujah, a city of 280,000 about 35 miles west of Baghdad. In a way, the contractors were guarding nothing: The mission that day was to pick up kitchen equipment the company needed elsewhere, so the trucks were empty.
The high-paying job carried high risks. Fallujah was known as the most dangerous place in Iraq for westerners, and the miles of dusty flatpan around the city were little safer. It was the heart of the Sunni Triangle, and a place where even the Marines who were supposed to control the area feared to venture without at least a couple dozen heavily armed troops.
Fallujah was considered so dangerous that the North Carolina-based 82nd Airborne Division, which had turned over the area to the Marines only a few days earlier, had a rule: No one could conduct a patrol even in the countryside -- let alone Fallujah itself -- without at least three vehicles packed with troops. There were often eight or more soldiers in each, their guns covering every angle.
"When you initially went into town, everything seemed calm and the people friendly, but once you were there for 45 minutes or an hour, you'd start to get this eerie feeling, and next thing you know, you might start getting RPGs," or rocket-propelled grenades, said Staff Sgt. Aaron Sullivan of the 82nd.
The Blackwater men knew about all this, in part because of the warning Zovko got along with the grenades. But they were veterans of elite military units. Teague and Batalona were combat veterans.
Nonetheless, the men from Blackwater were on their own March 31 as they tried to get to the other side of Fallujah. For every six U.S. soldiers in Iraq, there was one contractor, and they might get paid 10 times the wages of soldiers doing similar work. But they had no air support to call on, no medevac helicopters and no quick reinforcements. They had no formal access to military intelligence.
At 3 p.m. on March 30, 2004, a Blackwater team of four men in two Mitsubishi Pajeros set out from Camp Taji, escorting three empty flatbed trucks. Each vehicle was unarmored, except for a metal plate attached to the rear seat. Each vehicle was short one man, a rear gunner, and lacked proper maps and directions.
The convoy went to Camp Fallujah, on the mistaken belief that was their destination. Once at the camp, just east of Fallujah, the Blackwater men found no one from ESS, the European food company for whom they provided security.
The convoy then set out for Camp Ridgeway, west of Fallujah, but was stopped at a military checkpoint. It returned to Camp Fallujah for the night, where contractors working for Kellogg, Brown and Root gave the Blackwater men multiple warnings to avoid Fallujah.
The next morning, the convoy set out, armed with mini M-4 rifles and semiautomatic pistols. The drivers of the flatbed trucks, who survived the ambush, said the convoy was waved through a checkpoint manned by the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps.
Blackwater has said the ICDC led the convoy into the ambush. The drivers of the flatbed trucks, however, told investigators that there was no evidence that the ICDC participated.
When the convoy entered Fallujah, Iraqi police stopped the convoy and spoke with the occupants of the lead vehicle, Wesley Batalona and Jerry Zovko, who spoke Arabic. A few blocks down the road, traffic stopped in the four-lane road. The lead Blackwater vehicle was in the left lane, followed by two trucks. The third truck was in the right lane, followed by Scott Helvenston and Michael Teague.
While the convoy was stopped in traffic, four or five boys approached the lead Blackwater vehicle. The men rolled their windows down and Zovko spoke briefly with the boys, who walked to a large group of people and spoke to two men. After several minutes, insurgents bearing AK-47s attacked the rear vehicle, killing Teague and Helvenston. The lead vehicle tried to make a U-turn but was blocked by oncoming traffic. At least five insurgents then attacked the vehicle, killing Batalona and Zovko. One insurgent carried a video camera, which captured images of Batalona slumped toward Zovko, who leaned back in his seat, his face shattered.
The three truck drivers drove on. To escape, they had to do a U-turn and pass by the ambush, where they saw that a crowd, chanting and yelling, had set the vehicles on fire. The insurgents apparently didn't realize the trucks were part of the convoy.
The scene in Fallujah was unforgettable shortly thereafter: four Americans shot, their bodies defiled, two of them hung from a bridge.
A crowd began to collect in the open area on the south side of the road. Some brought out jugs of fuel, doused the vehicles, then set them afire. The mob grew to more than 300 people.
Arab journalists arrived within minutes, making videotapes and photographs that shortly would be sent around the world.
When the flames on the SUVs died, people pulled out the bodies, playing to the cameras, and set the bodies on fire, too. A man beat a blackened torso with a pipe; others used shovels. Several used the soles of their shoes, a grave insult in the Arab world. Another tied a brick to one charred leg and flung it up, where it caught on a power line, the brick on one side counterbalancing the leg.
"Fallujah is the graveyard of Americans," they chanted. "We sacrifice our blood and souls for Islam."
Young men danced atop the burned trucks.
A boy stamped on a burned head. "Where is Bush?" the boy yelled. "Let him come here and see this!"
Two of the bodies were dragged through the streets behind a car, eventually to a green-painted bridge over the Euphrates, where they were lashed to the metal frame.
"This is what these spies deserve," Salam Aldulayme, a 28-year-old Fallujah resident, told the journalists. Across the river, several Iraqi security officers stood around outside an ICDC headquarters. Someone asked why they didn't do something. The other side of the river isn't our jurisdiction, they replied. We aren't responsible.
The mob had tired of thrashing the two scorched torsos. The body on the south side of the skeletal steel bridge was tied to the girders with electrical cord about five feet above the ground, dismembered and decapitated. The second body hung on the other side of the roadway, feet up, its limbs slack, its head little more than a blackened skull. A few blocks away, another crowd was beating two more burned bodies.
On the bridge, an Arab reporter would raise a camera and a man or boy would climb to pose beside a corpse. Some in the crowd would turn and flash a "V" for victory with their fingers.
Beneath the bridge, the patches of tall reeds along the Euphrates were motionless in the still midmorning air of March 31. On the far side, a water buffalo grazed at the river's edge. U.S.-trained Iraqi security troops loitered around their headquarters and ignored the crowd.
The four dead men were Americans, armed civilians working for a private contractor.
The Marines, in charge of the area, hadn't known the four were traveling that day into the cauldron of Fallujah. They wouldn't risk a riot by trying to stop the macabre show. Finding the killers later might be their problem, but for now, the corpses would just have to stay there.
Later that day, the radio played oldies inside the Zovko family's body shop in a gritty corner of Cleveland. The music stopped for news: four U.S. contractors had been killed in some city in Iraq.
Danica Zovko, doing the shop's accounts, thought of another ugly televised scene a decade earlier. She sent two e-mail messages to her son Jerry, in Iraq:
"They're killing people in Iraq just like Somalia."
"... remember tomorrow is April Fools Day. Please be careful ..."
It didn't occur to Danica Zovko, or the families of the other men, that those torn, scorched bodies -- the "contractors" -- could be their kin. They knew little, just that Jerko "Jerry" Zovko, Wesley Batalona, Michael Teague and Stephen "Scott" Helvenston were in Iraq. In the families' eyes, they were soldiers, not contractors.
So in Ohio, Tennessee, Florida, California and, as the sun climbed, on Hawaii's Big Island, the families heard the reports. They went on with their normal business.
In early July, 2004 someone sent a copy of a videotape to Michael Ware, a Time magazine reporter who had spent time with insurgents in Fallujah.
The Islamic terrorists had turned the ambush into a recruiting tool -- a slick propaganda film featuring a soundtrack, a narrator and Arabic titles that fade out by flying off the screen like birds.
The tape opens with a hooded man giving details of the attack, and then there are the scenes filmed seconds after the shooting. Then, snippets from other attacks are shown, including a night ambush apparently against U.S. troops, the aftermath of an attack on a convoy transporting armored vehicles by truck, and a roadside bomb erupting as a U.S. military Humvee passes.
It's unclear whether the four men ever got off a shot in return.
Batalona, wearing sunglasses and a shoulder holster, slumped to his right, almost into his friend Zovko's lap. Bullets had torn through the back of his brightly colored shirt. Blood ran from his white hair.
Zovko wore body armor over a blue long-sleeved T-shirt, but it didn't help. His head was thrown back and he faced straight up, mouth agape. The right side of his face was torn open.
As the Blackwater segment fades to black, voices chant:
"Kick him out
"Make him flee
"Make life tight on him
"These are the brothers of the pig and the monkey
"Suppress them."
In the days after the Fallujah killings, the scenes of the mob abusing the contractors' bodies drew worldwide outrage. For many, it was an introduction to the growing role of private military contractors.
The Bridge - The News Observer
Steeplerot
Lifer
- Mar 29, 2004
- 13,051
- 6
- 81
I doubt these guys work for a fascist christian crusader mercenary militia and know nothing.
These guys are just the far-rights newest SS taking care of business as usual.
Steeplerot
Lifer
- Mar 29, 2004
- 13,051
- 6
- 81
I do not know your friend, he may just be a big loving teddy bear christian crusader type mercenary, pardon me if I reserve my judgment knowing your posting history. He seems like your kind to pal around with though.
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf"
"your kind"?
Nice to meet you... troll.You should ask the ones who killed most of them... that would be their brethren. Pick up the phone and dial 9640770 xxx xxxx, and ask them yourself.
Founder "implicated"? Oh please. Because someone decided to file suit trying to get money? Let me know when there's an actual conviction for anything. If there's a conviction, then sure, throw the book at them. Until then, I consider this just another money making attempt or smearing campaign by lefties.
Interesting... "the FBI says" is now a "fact"? Was this proven in any court? No. And yet we're supposed to accept it as a fact? Cool, no need for courts anymore, we can just say "the police said that the defendant was guilty" and call it a day :roll:
You silly lefties, ready to accept any flimsy "evidence" as long as it suits our agenda.
Interesting... "the FBI says" is now a "fact"? Was this proven in any court? No. And yet we're supposed to accept it as a fact? Cool, no need for courts anymore, we can just say "the police said that the defendant was guilty" and call it a day :roll:
You silly lefties, ready to accept any flimsy "evidence" as long as it suits our agenda.
waggy
No Lifer
- Dec 14, 2000
- 68,143
- 10
- 81
with the way the moderating of P&N has been lately i will refrain from saying what i really think.
But i will say that you are and citizenkain are disgusting.
You will refrain from sideways slurs against our moderation in inappropriate venues or the next time YOU will get a vacation. Use the proper channels, please.
Perknose
Senior AT Mod
So people who invade another country for money are fine upstanding people. They weren't over there to make things better, they were there to earn a buck at the expense of the Iraqi people.
Silly righties, always defending murderers as long as they on your side. I guess if you don't consider the other side as people, you can do whatever you want to them.
Well the above article with "unknown" sources say they are blackwater contractors and at least one of them is due to ship out to Iraq. That would indicate that Blackwater is in Iraq.
Well when the (R) did it it's because he's a blood thristy oil grabbing asshole. When the (D) does it it's because "his hands are tied and he has no other choice".
We really need to change the (D) to (Do as I say, not as I do). Because that is the standard practice of the (D)'s. They want everyone to act a certain way and do things certain ways, but they don't want to do it themselves.
No, there's EVERY need for courts, now. That's exactly the point. The accusations were made in Federal court by former Blackwater execs, under oath. What we don't need is for such accusations to be swept under the rug and dismissed.
You silly lefties, ready to accept any flimsy "evidence" as long as it suits our agenda.[/quote]
Remember, the first info we heard about acts of torture by the CIA, and the first we heard about unwarranted spying on the American citizens' phone and Internet communications, were dismissed as "baseless accusations"any "flimsy evidence" by "silly lefties."
It was only later that we got hard, irrefutable evidence that all of that was true, and all of it was ordered by your thankfully EX-Traitor In Chief and his criminal gang of traitors, torturers, murderers and war criminals.
The sources for these charges are sufficiently credible, and the charges against Erik Prince and Blackwater are sufficiently serious that they should not be casually dismissed by rightwingnuts whose previous lies and and false denials have left their credibility well south of zero.
Druidx
Platinum Member
- Jul 16, 2002
- 2,971
- 0
- 76
I assume Lupi is referring to my comment in the Franken + T. Boone Pickens = Fireworks topic, concerning Harvey's ever present but always redundant "Bush and his Criminal Cabal" bot.
Harvey implied it was his own, I only pointed out a large part of it was copied word for word from americianprogress.org
I never considered or called it plagiarism, a lot of what people write here is information from other sites. I considered this more like funny self ownage from Harvey since he claimed it as his own while insulting someone else by saying they were to stupid to write it even through it's mostly just a cut an paste job.
PJABBER
Diamond Member
- Feb 8, 2001
- 4,822
- 0
- 0
You do understand that this is a civil case and not a criminal case?
Prince and Blackwater are not being charged with any crime.
The are being sued for specific damages and while the filing uses words such as "criminal" liberally there will be no determination of criminality or prosecution of Blackwater for any crimes in the course of this trial.
The language is provocative and, if the case is not made, Blackwater can sue them back for defamation.
I spent a bit more time reading the claims this morning and most of them are easily dismissible as they imply some arbitrary standard of corporate behavior that doesn't exist and some U.S. and international standard for the conduct of war that doesn't apply to the private sector.
That is one of the problems in using contractor forces - what rules apply? Saddams? UCMJ? SOFA? International conventions? Nothing binds them other than national law in the AO (good luck in a war) or their contract. Blackwater was scrupulous in adhering to their contract terms so they are likely good to go.
Any accusation of murder has to be brought before a grand jury, but, as shown in the article, the US Attorney's office said, "We would not be able to comment on what we are or are not doing in regards to any possible investigation involving an uncharged individual."
The government is proceeding with criminal trials against individual contractors but the principals of Blackwater did not commit or condone the criminal actions and, in fact, had strong corporate policies in place specifically prohibiting criminal actions. Remember those charged are sub-contractors, while Blackwater is the general contractor and can distance itself from their individual malfeasance.
I am not a lawyer, but all of the other accusations seem to have little or no merit in a case against Prince or Blackwater, though they may apply to some of the independent contractors they used in fulfilling the general contract -
Among the additional allegations made by Doe #1 is that "Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq." He states that he personally witnessed weapons being "pulled out" from dog food bags. Doe #2 alleges that "Prince and his employees arranged for the weapons to be polywrapped and smuggled into Iraq on Mr. Prince's private planes, which operated under the name Presidential Airlines," adding that Prince "generated substantial revenues from participating in the illegal arms trade."
Smuggling weapons into Iraq? Are you kidding me? The State Department contract specifically requires them to bring in all weapons and equipment to conduct operations.
Doe #2 states: "Using his various companies, [Prince] procured and distributed various weapons, including unlawful weapons such as sawed off semi-automatic machine guns with silencers, through unlawful channels of distribution." Blackwater "was not abiding by the terms of the contract with the State Department and was deceiving the State Department," according to Doe #1.
This one is a joke as there were no specific weapons prohibited by contract terms. Sure, government military have to use issued weapons or weapons that adhere to US accepted international conventions, but do these rules apply to private individuals?
I really laughed in reading this - a) sawed off b)semi-automatic c) machine guns with d) silencers - someone doesn't know their weapons.
a) "Sawed off" means inaccurate and amateurish and not appropriate for an AO like Iraq where you were likely to have both close in and distance encounters.
b) and c) semi-auto and machine gun are contradictory terms, you can only have one or the other
d) I can see the need for sound suppressed weapons but these are not illegal in Iraq or in any other war zone, or in the U.S. either for that matter, so long as you pay your government tax. Of course, accuracy and velocity does fall off by using most suppressors and if you put one on a sawed off barrel, well, you had better be trying to get rounds on target from very close in.
Unlawful channels of distribution? Really questionable since they used private aircraft, right? You are not bound by military rules when you pay your own freight.
Both individuals allege that Prince and Blackwater deployed individuals to Iraq who, in the words of Doe #1, "were not properly vetted and cleared by the State Department."
Is this going to be applicable in a civil suit? DOS has been saying all along they are pleased with BW compliance. Did DOS in fact require a separate dossier on each contractor, do an individual background clearing and an individual sign off? I doubt it. Support provided to other companies like ESS, forget it. A non-issue.
Doe #2 adds that "Prince ignored the advice and pleas from certain employees, who sought to stop the unnecessary killing of innocent Iraqis."
Wow, what a loaded statement. You have to put the discussions in context, which will be hard to do. Unnecessary killing? It is a matter of judgment in a war zone and a very hard case to build in a civil suit unless they are referring to the criminal actions taken by some of the sub-contractors that have been charged separately.
Doe #2 further states that some Blackwater officials overseas refused to deploy "unfit men" and sent them back to the US. Among the reasons cited by Doe #2 were "the men making statements about wanting to deploy to Iraq to 'kill ragheads' or achieve 'kills' or 'body counts,'" as well as "excessive drinking" and "steroid use." However, when the men returned to the US, according to Doe #2, "Prince and his executives would send them back to be deployed in Iraq with an express instruction to the concerned employees located overseas that they needed to 'stop costing the company money.'"
I guess Doe #2 doesn't surf P&N .
I don't appreciate idiots on the battlefield or elsewhere but they always seem to find their way there. It would be good business practice to keep the nutjobs off payroll and, considering the scope and effectiveness of Blackwater's involvement, they seem to have been highly successful in doing so.
Hmmmm, steroids, alcohol and cigarettes are bad for your health. Can't have that in a battle zone. Need more carrot juice.
Doe #2 also says Prince "repeatedly ignored the assessments done by mental health professionals, and instead terminated those mental health professionals who were not willing to endorse deployments of unfit men." He says Prince and then-company president Gary Jackson "hid from Department of State the fact that they were deploying men to Iraq over the objections of mental health professionals and security professionals in the field," saying they "knew the men being deployed were not suitable candidates for carrying lethal weaponry, but did not care because deployments meant more money."
Hmmm, Blackwater used psychological screening to make hiring decisions. We do that in my company too. We also may choose to ignore the results if a candidate is particularly valuable. I would say this is common business practice.
And there is always some friction between home office and field staff. Sue me, why don't you?
Doe #1 states that "Blackwater knew that certain of its personnel intentionally used excessive and unjustified deadly force, and in some instances used unauthorized weapons, to kill or seriously injure innocent Iraqi civilians." He concludes, "Blackwater did nothing to stop this misconduct." Doe #1 states that he "personally observed multiple incidents of Blackwater personnel intentionally using unnecessary, excessive and unjustified deadly force." He then cites several specific examples of Blackwater personnel firing at civilians, killing or "seriously" wounding them, and then failing to report the incidents to the State Department.
Now this is a serious charge. We would need to go into specific incidents and have access to after action reports, etc. Application of deadly force in combat is a tricky thing. You need to use it to survive or to protect your clients but excess means what exactly? And from what I know Blackwater consistently shipped people out and terminated individual contracts for a wide variety of reasons. So far as I know they always cooperated with investigations else their general contract with State would have been at risk.
Doe #1 also alleges that "all of these incidents of excessive force were initially videotaped and voice recorded," but that "Immediately after the day concluded, we would watch the video in a session called a 'hot wash.' Immediately after the hotwashing, the video was erased to prevent anyone other than Blackwater personnel seeing what had actually occurred." Blackwater, he says, "did not provide the video to the State Department."
A good practice but not one mandated by the State contract and therefore it was up to BW if they shared. Considering the number of daily missions, I doubt that anyone at State was going to sit and review any of this stuff. From what I remember from some conversation a few years back, US military was sometimes invited to participate, at some levels there was a regular exchange of tactical intelligence and consultation on best practices and techniques.
Doe #2 expands on the issue of unconventional weapons, alleging Prince "made available to his employees in Iraq various weapons not authorized by the United States contracting authorities, such as hand grenades and hand grenade launchers. Mr. Prince's employees repeatedly used this illegal weaponry in Iraq, unnecessarily killing scores of innocent Iraqis." Specifically, he alleges that Prince "obtained illegal ammunition from an American company called LeMas. This company sold ammunition designed to explode after penetrating within the human body. Mr. Prince's employees repeatedly used this illegal ammunition in Iraq to inflict maximum damage on Iraqis."
I could be wrong, but grenades of all kinds (fragmentation, concussion, flashbangs, smoke, CS) were in fairly common availability in the contractor ranks. There are grenade launchers but not hand grenade launchers, unless you use a slingshot. Yeah, Doe #2 is likely a REMF.
Interesting in the mention of LeMas ammunition. Hmmm, exploding bullets? Again, this sounds like a guy that doesn't have much time with weapons. LeMas rounds are commercially available lightweight bullets loaded hot. Hypervelocity will cause fragmentation of the round to be sure, but that is not explosive. Overpressure shock contributes to death with modern rounds and these rounds offer more of that element. Again, what makes it illegal? The Coral Gables, FL PD just adopted its use. Sue them now!
Blackwater has gone through an intricate rebranding process in the twelve years it has been in business, changing its name and logo several times. Prince also has created more than a dozen affiliate companies, some of which are registered offshore and whose operations are shrouded in secrecy. According to Doe #2, "Prince created and operated this web of companies in order to obscure wrongdoing, fraud and other crimes."
I did not know BW is actually ACORN!!!!
"For example, Mr. Prince transferred funds from one company (Blackwater) to another (Greystone) whenever necessary to avoid detection of his money laundering and tax evasion schemes." He added: "Mr. Prince contributed his personal wealth to fund the operations of the Prince companies whenever he deemed such funding necessary. Likewise, Mr. Prince took funds out of the Prince companies and placed the funds in his personal accounts at will."
What BS! BW is Prince's company and he can add and withdraw capital whenever he wants. Blackwater has never been charged with any form of tax-evasion or money laundering.
I took the time to comment on this story for several reasons.
One, I think ill intended lawsuits of this type are dragging down the country on every level.
Two, I also believe that propaganda rags like "The Nation" substitute for news way too often. The innuendo and false accusations that stand in for truth has become deafening.
Three, while I am not here to defend BW, I do have quite a bit of respect for Erik Prince, whom I believe to be a standup guy and an outstanding patriotic American. You have to dig deeper to get to the meat of this issue and to understand what makes him tick. Though it takes time, you might be rewarded by the insight you get.
Four, I am supportive of "the troops" and I don't say those words in the same way a liberal might. I value the purpose of the military and I recognize how hard that job is to do sometimes. Most of the contractors in BW are good guys that have served the country well when they were in the military or in a PD and they continued to serve well in the private sector. There are exceptions, there always are. But, I am inclined to dwell on the 99% and not the 1% in this case.
Steeplerot
Lifer
- Mar 29, 2004
- 13,051
- 6
- 81
What is the difference? If Pol Pot turned Christian they would be buddies.
And for the drama queens who think that I condone murder, forget it.
These guys need to be fully investigated and tried, as they ran amok in Iraq spreading their brutality in the name of fascistic christian domininism.
IndyColtsFan
Lifer
- Sep 22, 2007
- 33,655
- 688
- 126
CADsortaGUY
Lifer
Wow, didn't see that fucking coming. /sarcasm
Blackwater is useless trash and should be burnt down.
Blackwater is useless trash and should be burnt down.
theflyingpig
Banned
- Mar 9, 2008
- 5,616
- 18
- 0
They serve their purpose as mercenaries, but they should confine their activities to that specific role. Any deviation, and they must be wiped out. Everyone knows this.
Andrew1990
Banned
- Mar 8, 2008
- 2,153
- 0
- 0
Mercs do have their place in a war zone or conflict. I believe they were used to some success in a few African Nations as well as some Latin American areas?
Now, that doesnt mean there are not any bad eggs, but to classify all of them bad isnt right.
theflyingpig
Banned
- Mar 9, 2008
- 5,616
- 18
- 0
You have a rather limited view of warfare. Mercenaries can be hired to do things a nations army cannot. This is their purpose. Everyone knows this.
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